A Truly Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner {What Did the Pilgrims and Wampanoags Eat?}

 We each have our own traditional food list for Thanksgiving: turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie....all of these delicious items are featured on Thanksgiving menus. But, have you ever wondered what the Pilgrims and Wampanoags ate for their Thanksgiving meal? How similar was their meal to ours?

The focal point of Thanksgiving meals today tends to be the turkey. While Pilgrims may have had wild turkey at their first Thanksgiving meal, other fowl may have figured more prominently in the meal. Goose, duck, swan and passenger pigeons may have been part of the meal. Passenger pigeons may seem like a particularly odd inclusion to the meal. While passenger pigeons are now extinct in the wild, there actually were a large number in New England in the 1620's.

Fowl would not have been the only meat represented at this legendary meal. According to on of the few remaining primary documents referring to the meal, venison would have been part of the feast. Additionally, eel and shellfish were also commonly eaten at the time. Mussels were easily harvested because they clustered along the shoreline and, thus, would have been part of the meal. Wouldn't things be different if eel or mussels had become the main dish for Thanksgiving?

How about stuffing? Birds may have been stuffed, but not like we stuff them today. Instead, Pilgrims would stuff them with onions, herbs and even nuts. Smaller birds were spit roasted while larger ones were boiled. Some birds were boiled first and finished on the spit, while others were cooked on the spit first and then boiled.

As for vegetation, the Thanksgiving meal would likely have highlighted the bountiful fall harvest during the season. The spread most likely included onions, beans, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, carrots and maybe peas. Corn was very much a staple at the time. However, it would have been made into a cornmeal to make cornbread or porridge. Some of the fruit available would have included blueberries, plums, grapes, gooseberries, raspberries and cranberries. However, cranberry sauce would have been missing from the table as the Pilgrims had significantly depleted their sugar store by the time of the Thanksgiving feast.

A surprisingly vegetable missing from the Thanksgiving table---potatoes! While potatoes had been discovered in their native South America by the Spanish, they had yet to make their journey to New England. So, it would be awhile before potatoes would be added to Thanksgiving feasts.

Another Thanksgiving delight--pie--would have also been missing from the table. The early colonists did not have butter nor wheat flour to make the crust. Instead, Pilgrims would have likely hollowed out pumpkins, filled them with milk, honey and spices and then roasted them in hot ashes. The result would have been a sweet custard.

Thanksgiving in 1621 was quite different than what we enjoy today. However, the message of giving thanks for all that we have remains the same nearly 400 years later.

For more information on what was served during the Pilgrims and Wampanoags' meal, see our sources below.

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Sources:

First Thanksgiving Meal on History.com

What was on the Menu during the First Thanksgiving? on Smithsonian.com

The First Thanksgiving on Epicurious